Gun measures fail in Senate

One day after the deadliest U.S. mass shooting in nearly three years, the Senate voted down a pair of gun-control measures that were designed by Democrats to put Republicans on record on the charged issue.

The votes, which came in connection with GOP legislation to repeal Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood, marked the first roll calls on the Senate floor this year that would enact tougher restrictions on firearms. And despite a continued push from Democrats and gun-control advocates, as well as scores of fatal mass shootings nationwide — from churches to community colleges to a center for people with developmental disabilities — not a single lawmaker changed position from an ambitious gun overhaul effort that failed more than two years ago.

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The first gun control measure proposed by Democrats was legislation from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would deny people on a federal terrorism watch list the ability to purchase guns. The measure failed, 45-54. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) voted with Republicans to reject the measure, and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) crossed over to vote in favor of the gun restrictions.

The second vote revived legislation from April 2013, written in the aftermath of the shooting deaths of 20 elementary school children in Newtown, Conn., with bipartisan backing that would enact universal background checks. The four Republicans who backed the bill then — Kirk and Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, John McCain of Arizona and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who co-authored the measure with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — also voted in favor of the Democrats' plan on Thursday. Heitkamp also opposed the second gun-control measure, which was blocked on a 48-50 tally.

"The entire country will know where every member of the Senate stands on tightening background checks, on keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists and on strengthening and improving mental health in this country," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday at a news conference detailing the strategy. "There are a good number — not all — but there are a good number of our Republican colleagues dreading these two votes. Dreading them."

Republicans fought back with their own proposals, with an alternative written by Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn that the Texas Republican said would better protect the Second Amendment rights of people who mistakenly end up on the FBI's terrorist watch list. Cornyn's amendment also threw in provisions to defund "sanctuary cities," which are areas where local law enforcement officials don't cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Opponents of the Democrats' bill to close the so-called "terror gap" argue that the broad terror watch list can wrongly ensnare people who are not terrorists. For example, former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) had his name appear on a government no-fly list in 2004.

Under the Democratic proposal, "the government, without due process, can take away from you valuable constitutional rights," Cornyn said. "And they happen to be Second Amendment rights without notice and the opportunity to be heard."

Cornyn's proposal was killed on a 55-44 vote. It needed 60 votes to advance. And in response to the second gun-control vote, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) offered a measure that would provide additional funding for prosecuting felons and fugitives who fail background checks, as well as criminalize straw purchasing and gun trafficking. That measure also failed to advance on a 53-46 vote.

At a special caucus meeting on Thursday morning, Democratic senators agreed to offer the Feinstein proposal, as well as the re-vote on background checks, senators and aides said. The votes could become major campaign fodder in next year’s Senate races.

A third amendment proposed by Reid that would restrict gun ownership for people convicted of intimidation at abortion clinics will not be offered, sources said. Democrats only want to a narrow list of amendments and that measure is viewed as overlapping with another amendment that would seek to strip out a provision defunding Planned Parenthood.

Not a single Senate Republican spoke against or in favor of the Democrats' background checks proposal, and Toomey wasn’t even in the chamber to hear his old partner Manchin say that background checks makes “all the sense in the world.” Instead, Toomey quietly marched from the cloakroom to silently cast his vote for the proposal, lingering to check in with McCain.

“I recognize that enhanced background checks are not going to stop all mass shootings," Toomey said in a statement on the re-vote. "But some tragedies, such as the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, might have been prevented. And if there’s a sensible way to help keep the American people safer, I believe it deserves our support.”

The vote carried little drama: No one changed their position from April 2013, and other than Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) attempting to vote “aye” twice, there was little drama as senators scrolled on their phones during the first major gun vote in two and a half years.

Heitkamp, the only remaining Democrat opposed to background checks after last year’s electoral shellacking, quietlycast her “no” vote from her desk.

“These votes were on amendments to a political messaging bill which the president has already said he will veto if it passes," a spokeswoman for Heitkamp said. "Sen. Heitkamp has made clear where she stands on background checks legislation, and that hasn’t changed.”

As he has done in the aftermath of massacres this year, Reid took to the Senate floor on Thursday morning to chide his colleagues to “take a good, hard looking this morning, maybe in the mirror, and ask themselves: ‘Where do I stand?’” Reid oversaw the most serious effort in 2013 for new gun control legislation, which failed due to opposition from most Republicans and four pro-gun rights Democrats.

“We don’t do anything. We as the legislative body of this country do nothing. So I have a question for every member of this body: How can we live with ourselves for failing to do the things that will reduce gun violence?” Reid said. “We’re complicit through our inaction. And if we continue to fail to act, we’ll be complicit today and every day into the future.”

Schumer, Reid’s top messaging strategist, had planned to lead a news conference berating Republicans for using budget reconciliation to put an Obamacare repeal on the president's desk. But Democrats changed the topic of the event “to call for amendments to [the] reconciliation bill to address gun violence.”

With the terrorism “loophole” proposal, Democrats hoped to put vulnerable Republicans on record in the hopes of either criticizing them for not supporting the legislation or to tout its bipartisan support and call for an eventual binding vote.

"Members of Congress don’t get elected in order to send out sympathy tweets," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said. "Members of Congress get paid to change policy to make people safer ... in this Congress, we’re not even trying. We’re not even making an attempt. That’s offensive."